Anglo-American Action on Thriller
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 3/29/2004
A new legal thriller, Bleedout, by American-in-England Joan Brady was preempted in London before it could be circulated to interested American publishers. The buyers were Mark Gompertz and Trish Todd, publisher and editor-in-chief respectively of S&S's Touchstone imprint, who heard about the book as they traveled to London to visit the book fair and meet with their S&S U.K. counterparts, who had just bought it. They made their offer to John Saddler at Curtis Brown U.K., thus stealing a march on publishers here who were reading manuscripts supplied by George Lucas at Carlisle & Co. Gompertz and Todd offered six figures for two books, North American and audio, and the novel will appear on both sides of the water next April.
